China's Renmin University released a report that revealed Alibaba created around 40.82 million jobs last year. The tech giant also provided training programs through its "Taobao University".
According to Xinhua, the Chinese retail giant created an estimated 15.58 million jobs for online retailers to grow their businesses on the company's e-commerce platforms including Tmall and Taobao.
Most of the jobs offered by Jack Ma's company were recorded within the home appliances, daily necessities, and apparel and textiles departments but the overall driver of increased jobs was the retail firm's online services.
Due to increased demand in R&D design and logistics and manufacturing sectors also helped Alibaba produce more jobs for online retail service specialists. The said sects created a total of 25.24 million additional jobs.
Renmin University Yang Weiguo, who led the study, explained that Alibaba and other similar e-commerce platforms play a major role in boosting employment in China. Such platforms also help stabilize employment rates in the country, Weiguo said.
Last week, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said the company will avoid laying off people this year despite fears of the economic slowdown's impact on the tech industry. According to Reuters, Zhang said the firm will instead utilize the platform's resources to haul in more orders and retain workers throughout 2019.
Zhang explained that "the biggest advantage for online platforms" when an economic crisis arises is to create more jobs. His comments came after reports emerged about JD.com seeking to lay off 10 percent of its senior executives. The Alibaba rival refused to comment on the matter.
While Alibaba already created a huge number of jobs last year, the company announced that it will keep producing opportunities for talented applicants in the next decade.
During the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the tech giant's mammoth cloud computing department, Alibaba Cloud, it is aiming to provide a million female coders with free access to the arm's computing resources as well as free online training.
According to PCGamesN, the goal is to empower female coders by 2030 as part of the group's efforts in supporting female education. Alibaba Cloud will partner with the prominent iamtheCODE movement, an initiative spearheaded by African computing enthusiasts.
Chief Machine Intelligence scientist of Alibaba Cloud, Dr. Wanli Min said of the venture, "By making technology more accessible and affordable, we can inspire creativity and nurture the next generation of game-changers who will make our world a better place."
74 percent of game developers around the world identify as male and only 21 percent identified as female. China's leading online retail firm said it is looking to change the figures and help produce more female coders as part of its Tech for Change initiative.
